eBay's revenues are on the rise again, thanks to the continued growth of its PayPal and Skype operations. But in the third quarter, the online tat house saw profits plummet nearly 30 per cent. The news sent its share price tumbling more than five per cent in after hours trading on Wednesday.
In the quarter ending September 30, …

How did they manage that...

Ebay should be rolling in it.

These days they've effectively made every auction anonymous, this has made shill bidding rife, as only the really stupid will get spotted by you or I. Member 5 years, items bid on 20, bids with this user 100%, items won 0. Hmmmmm

Ebay don't care as this pushes up the price, and they are on a percentage. In fact they do care, but in the wrong way, they've actively encouraged it by the anonymous step, and say it's very naughty (whilst describing how to do it) in the T&Cs!

I have spotted a couple of really badly executed shill bids and reported them, but the real proof came recently when I bought a lens for my camera.

I won one for £510, when all round it were auctions going to £600. Now who would bid on an auction when the same item (in equally perfect condition) was £100+ cheaper elsewhere? Bids were going in at £599, which is a funny value, that's an I want to loose it value. £601.23 is an I want to win it kind of value.

Not that I should complain, I spotted the one seller who hadn't set up the second account to push things up.

eBay still going down the toilet ...

"Noise" Donahoe is still driving the eBay Marketplaces down the toilet, and when the credit card companies finally get off their backsides and introduce a like card/terminal-less payments system—which they will do properly—PayPal will go the same way ...

Ebay Fees are too much.

Here's one simple reason why Ebay are making less - have they seen their fees recently?

Yesterday I wanted to buy a Kodak Zi8 pocket cam. Best Ebay price I could find $169+shipping.

Best price I could find on the high street? $159 at Best Buy. Best Buy for crying out loud! Even adding on the sales tax, Best Buy of all places were cheaper (Best Buy is a PC World/Curry's type shop).

When a company like Best Buy is more competitive than Ebay, you know Ebay are charging too much.

Lame Duck?

Call me naive or just stupid, but I don't understand why Skype is seen as such a "lame" duck business.

Skype is immeasurably useful to me and I rarely use it for Skype to Skype free calls. The majority of calls that are made to me are to my SkypeIn number in the UK, which I pay for, or calls out to China and the UK, which I pay for.

Are us paying customers for Skype really so few? I love Skype, I really want to see it survive.

Truth is eBay is shite...

And has been so for at least 5 years now. Its been a slow steady decline as they tried to pursue ever-increasing revenues by compromising the integrity of their auctions. There all but dead now, and I say fuck 'em.

Cost

I can only echo the sentiment already posted - I closed my ebay account when they started forcing use of Paypal. I know that things got a lot worse after that with price hikes, and stupid rules. Qiute simply, they got too big and too greedy.

All seems normal to me

Again another load of statistics mis-mashed and presented all together in a fashion to cause total lack of understanding, not by the author who is just reproducing the figures, probably from an accountants statement, which is where the original disappearing monies magic originates.

Can anyone actually put a figure on what the real situation is, I mean forget about the magical mumbo jumbo, is the company making money in real terms, or just paper money.

Whilst to many, the share prices and the effects the statements have on the share prices, which actually values the company,means a lot, but gives no indication if the company is actually making money, may be the indicator to whether ebay is worth investing in or not, it isn't really any reflection on profitability.

Please, some enlightenment, without magic mirrors and smoke, would be much appreciated.

eBay says there's no shill bidding on eBay

I don't believe it. How could anyone possibly think that there was any shill bidding on eBay. eBay has "sophisticated, proactive" tools to detect and root out such criminal behaviour ...

And, from an eBay “buyers” perspective, some more food for thought on the matter …

Shill Bidding on eBay: Case Study #2

Shining some light on the more sophisticated and therefore harder to detect shill bidding activity by many “professional” sellers on eBay auctions

This time including a spreadsheet analysis of multiple auctions, from some “professional” sellers from the US and Australia. Needless to say the analysis demonstrates, once again, that, contrary to eBay’s claims, shill bidding by many “professional” sellers is rampant on eBay auctions. The full comment and spreadsheet download links at:

skype profit?

how did that happen?

ebay still plods on in it's own cesspit of tat, swallowing your old pennies and storing in them in an offshore grubby money bag. shame there's no real alternative, craigslist looks like an fucking 12 year olds first attempt at a website....in 1995....with no arms....blinded by gin...and done in Word....on a BBC master....in fucking Madagascar!